Thursday, March 15, 2012

Furniture Hoarding

One of my favorite parts about re-doing furniture is seeing the potential in old beat-up pieces. I love treasure hunting. As I mentioned last week, I've been collecting furniture to refinish/refresh for my space at the Luckett's Spring Market in May. Because I've been spending so much time thrifting/craigslisting, I haven't actually finished any projects. But, I'm proud to show you the collection I've gathered.

Here is what our dining room currently looks like. Some of this is for the market and some of it isn't. That's our dining room table, which normally has a table cloth but has magically transformed into my sewing table.

This mid-century dresser is by Stanley furniture, and I'm having a hard time figuring out when it was built. Some clues: It has a stamp on the left side of the top drawer that says "Distinctive Furniture by Stanley". The drawer glides in the dresser itself are wood, but the glides on the bottom of the drawers are metal. Also, the top is Formica. I don't think I'm going to do much to this guy but repair the bottom drawer glide and clean it up a bit. I'm not even sure he'll make it with me to the market.

This dresser has some veneer issues, so I will probably repair it with wood filler and paint it. I'm thinking a deep blue. When I picked it up, I knew the drawers were solid but I had never seen the kind of joints on them before. I discovered that they are pin and crescent joints, which were pretty much only used on furniture manufactured between 1871 - 1900, which is pretty awesome.

This old art deco waterfall dresser is really hurting, but I think I can make it gorgeous again. I love the drawer pulls. My favorite part about this dresser is that it's in such bad shape that I don't feel remotely guilty putting a coat of paint on it. I like painted furniture and stained wood, and sometimes I feel really guilty painting over perfectly nice wood. But with a dresser like this, I won't be ruining anything. Pretty much anything I can do to it will be an improvement.

I picked up this little stool and end table on Craigslist. I might use a combination of painted and stained surfaces for the table. I am also thinking the top might look cool with a design in it, similar to my herringbone side table. This little stool might also look cool with a design on the seat. Haven't quite decided what to do with him yet.

While mid-century doesn't really jive with what we've got going on in our house, I thought these looked 1) really cool and 2) relatively easy to tackle. They're actually outside in this picture because I started sanding them last weekend. Like my mid-century dresser, I am having a hard time finding something similar to these. They have a number on the bottom, but no other clues. All my googling hasn't turned up something similar, so I'm not sure what their story is. I can say that they're nice, solid tables, and I think they're going to look amazing once I'm done with them.

Of all the stuff I've collected, I definitely have the most chairs. They can just have so much character, I can't really help myself. I always wondered how my grandparents ended up with a collection of random chairs in their house, and now I know because I'm well on my way. How cool is this banker's chair? It needs to be cleaned up and possibly refinished. I think I might also reupholster in with a bright, feminine print. I love the idea of juxtaposing a masculine chair with a feminine print.

I got a pair of these needlepoint chairs from the sad guy selling all his grandparents' furniture. You can kind of see in this picture that the seats aren't completely perfect, so they will get reupholstered. Don't worry, I'm going to try to preserve the needlework pieces and make them into art.

This rocker actually folds up and would be perfect for a little nursery. The design on the top reminds me of some cane chairs that my grandpa refinished for my parents. This will be very sunny when I'm done with it.

So there's your sneak peak. I hope to get a lot done on these projects over the next few days. And who are we kidding, I might accumulate some more projects too.

Speaking of the next few days...I turn 25 on Monday. Eek! It's kind of crazy to think about. I have some fun stuff planned for the weekend and I will try to be a good little blogger and take pictures and tell you about it next week.

For my birthday, I'm asking my parents for some money towards a DSLR camera. Do any of you lovely readers have recommendations for a good starter (and affordable) DSLR? I haven't made up my mind yet.

the mid century end tables might be haywood wakefield, kinda looks like it from the picture. waterfall dresser you could take out the top drawer and leave it as a shelf - i'm making one like that now.good luck!

The mid-century dresser by Stanley Furniture is very similar in style to the china cabinet I inherited from my mother, which has the same stamp on the left side of one of the drawers, spacing above/below the bottom cabinet doors similar to the spacing between the drawers on your dresser, ditto on the bottom of drawers being metal. My cabinet doesn't have formica but the matching dining table has a formica top. My mother called it Danish modern. She bought the set around 1962.

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I'm Sarah, an interior designer from Alexandria, Virginia. This is where I document my love of design on all levels, from beautiful furniture and DIY projects to the powerful way interiors can affect our lives. Thanks for checking out my blog! Learn more.